Hubert Dreyfus, professor of philosophy at UC Berkeley and leading interpreter of Heidegger, podcasts his course lectures on iTunes. In his most popular course, “Man, God, Society in Western Literature: From Gods to God and Back,” Dreyfus surveys five major literary works of Western Literature according to Heidegger's "understanding of being." Between Homer and Melville, Dreyfus devotes six classes to The Divine Comedy: over eight hours of an existentialist reading of Dante.
Dreyfus lectures that Artworks focus, glamorize and unify a culture, thereby holding up to people the unifying thing that makes them a Greek or a Roman or a Christian or an American, in his examples. In hours of close textual analysis, Dreyfus argues that Dante's Divine Comedy focuses and unifies a medieval Christian understanding of being in such a way that readers could and understand their lives in the light of the artwork.
(There's a mistake in the iTunes listing, however, because iTunes has the Dante Lecture Nos. 15-19, when they are actually Nos. 16-20, so the first Dante Lecture actually begins with "The Divine Comedy - Inferno - Part B" while the preceding one is still on the Gospel of John.
Also, the complete course of "Man, God, Society in Western Culture" is recorded and available from Spring 2007. Dreyfus is teaching the course again this semester of Fall 2008, and lectures are published on iTunes as they are recorded. According to the online course schedule, The Divine Comedy is slated for October 28-November 6.)
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